


I Let the Bullets Fly (oh let them rain)

by writing_as_tracey



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: 3+1, Canon Relationships, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Expanded narrative (1x13), F/M, FTFY ending to 1x13, Falling In Love, Family, Family Issues, Freeform narrative, Gangs, Gen, Jughead - introspective, Loyalty, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-12
Updated: 2017-05-12
Packaged: 2018-10-31 00:07:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10887768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writing_as_tracey/pseuds/writing_as_tracey
Summary: A jacket can mean a lot - it's armour, protection, acceptance. 3+1 times Jughead wears a jacket.All episode spoilers (including the finale).





	I Let the Bullets Fly (oh let them rain)

I Let the Bullets Fly (oh let them rain)

*

 **AN** : 1x13 spoilers included - and I expanded on **that** scene.

 **Summary** : A jacket can mean a lot - it's armour, protection, acceptance. 3+1 times Jughead wears a jacket. 

 **Disclaimer:** All characters belong to the CW and associated creators and producers; lyrics that tie this story together are Imagine Dragon's  _Believer_ (which fit SO WELL)

*

_First things first... I’m fired up and tired of the way that things have been_

 

His jacket is denim, lined with white fleece inside. Outwardly, it’s a fabric that is all-American, the fabric of workers and comfort everywhere, but the inside – that’s _true_  comfort. It’s soft and cushy, and it keeps him warm even on the coldest of nights. It’s security wrapped in white wool.

Undershirt or t-shirt; button up or sweater; sometimes both or three or all four, and then the jacket. The more layers he has, the better. His jacket, the last layer, is a weapon against the crowd, another layer to hide behind. He wears his layers as protection, a means to ensure no one gets close enough to discover the truth; after all, they would have to peel back it all to get to _him_.

Since this summer, it’s armour. The jacket frames his shoulders and hangs loose, but it is his shield against more than the weather.

She’s the first to try to push past the jacket.

She’s the first he’s even interested in letting _try_.

The girl next door, the perky blonde, and childhood best friend – she is the first to extend a hand to the wounded wolf and wait for the bite.

She beguiles him with sweet smiles and honeyed words, coy head tilts and her bouncy ponytail. She looks at him with wide, sparkling eyes, and a dark part wonders _why now? why are you seeing me now?_ but he hushes it, basking in her warmth.

“Come to the Blue and Gold,” she says and he does.

“Help me find Polly,” she pleads, and he does.

“Keep me sane,” she doesn’t say, but he can read it, and he kisses her.

She sees past the armour, and for the firs time in months, Jughead can feel himself begin to relax.

*

_Second thing... I’m the one at the sail / I’m the master of my sea_

 

The jacket he wears to Jason’s funeral is not his usual – it feels odd, sits wrong, but _it was a memorial._ It’s black and fitted, something he took from his closet at the trailer and something he had only worn once before, years ago. It’s tight across the chest now and he has to wear it open.

It’s not quite him, but it is – it’s dark and so is he, not always outwardly, but he feels it inside him. She makes it better – by his side, the Watson to his Holmes (or is he Watson?) – and together they stand firm, a solid mass against the crowd and he thinks—

_Finally._

Someone is at his side.

Someone believes in him, is willing to do the crazy he is willing to do.

They sneak into Jason’s old bedroom, and when the Blossom matriarch, in her wheelchair and rhummey eyes turns to face them, he’s the solid presence at Betty’s back.

She once asked things of him, and he gave. Wordlessly, he asks things of her in his ill-fitting jacket, the layers of protection he wore as armour, gone.

 _Don’t leave me_ , he asks with each glance at her.

 _Stay with me_ , he begs in each kiss.

 _Don’t give up on me_ , he cries, each time they lace their fingers together.

This is becoming about more than just Jason’s murder, Polly and the Sisters of Quiet Mercy, and the town’s secrets.

It’s becoming about them.

And with each returned glance, kiss, and moment she reaches for his hand, she’s a warmth steadily growing in his heart.

(He wonders when it’ll become too much and he burns.

Then he thinks, _what the hell – it’s worth it_. _)_

*

_Third things third... Send a prayer to the ones up above / All the hate you’ve heard –_

 

His birthday was a hot mess. He wore his usual armour – nothing special. He wondered if he chose it as a sign of things to come.

At the movies, she said, “I’m all about the beast within.”

That should’ve been his first clue,

He and Betty have had a fight and made up – FP told him to go after her _and he did_ , and it was – he said horrible things to her, projecting his own insecurities but she stood there and took it like a champ and then, that night, she strips another of his layers away.

The scars on her palms hurt him in a way words ( _dirty South Side scum, trailer trash, never amount to anything nobody – you’re just like your father_ ) never do. She admits her mistake and tells him, “Something is very, very wrong with me. Like there’s this darkness in me that’s overwhelming sometimes, and I don’t know where it comes from. But I think that’s what makes me do these crazy things.”

The pieces that he thought fit – him, Jughead Jones, and her Betty Cooper – shift and change. What was once a puzzle that was nearly complete, he realizes now was just a small part of something larger.

Her darkness inside changes the dynamic, and suddenly, that previous puzzle isn’t right. The new one he builds of them in his mind – now, _those_ pieces begin to fit.

It’s a better fit.

She talks about a ‘dark side.’

 _Maybe_ , he thinks, casting eyes on this blonde not-quite-an-angel beside him, snuggled into his arms and who has stuck through everything with him so far, and plans to be there for some time – _maybe, they’re two peas in a pod._

They both had dark sides, and that’s okay.

So, the second time he wears a suit jacket, it’s not for a funeral. With the first of his honest wages, FP bought him a nice one for Homecoming. It _fits_ him, tailored right for the shoulders and chest, and he can close this one and button it. It’s not too long in the arms, or too short, and it hits his waist at the right height.

Jughead feels like it is a turning point for both of them.

Then the night goes to hell and he’s left floundering – but one thing he knows –

_“I didn’t know what they were doing... I said I did... It was good enough.”_

His word was good enough for her; her words could be good enough for him, too.

*

_Last things last... By the grace of the fire and the flames / You're the face of the future, the blood in my veins_

 

He was almost expecting the knock when it came. They could never get a break, and there he was, arms full of the woman he loved, feeling her hot skin on his and frantically kissing, pressing closer to her as much as possible. The only one who looked him in the eye, and _believed him_ when he said he believed his father was innocent; who then continued the campaign through even when he fell –

She believed in him.

She loved him.

And then the knock came, and he hoped to god it wasn’t Mrs. C.

The ragtag crowd in front of the trailer made him pause, and a small, dirty sheepdog, barked once.

“Easy, Hot Dog,” the youngest of the group, in black leather, admonishes. “He’s family.”

He blinks, straightening his long-sleeved Henley.

“Hey. Heard your dad could have named names but he didn’t,” the self-appointed leader of the group says. He has one booted foot on the lowest step leading into the trailer, leaning his forearm on his bent knee, and is holding something black in one hand. He too is wearing a leather jacket.

Jughead mutely nods.

“Serpents take care of their own,” the leader continues. After a moment’s indecision, he hands out the black _something_ he’s holding. “We wanted you to know, no matter what happens to him, however long he’s gone, we’ve got your back. This is yours, if you want it.”

Jughead stares at the offered black jacket, the leather worn and smooth in same places and a part of him marvels at the elaborate stitch work on the back: the green and white design of a snake and the golden words at the top reading _South Side_.

It’s his father’s South Side Serpents jacket.

He hesitates – briefly – and then –

He swings it wide in an arch up and over, sliding first one arm through and then the other, and the leather, as well as the faint scent of his father – cigarettes and cheap beer – settles on him like a comforting blanket.

“Juggie?”

He turns slightly and Betty, clasping her pink sweater to her chest, is staring at him from inside the trailer. Her eyes are wide and her voice is unsure as they take in him. What he looks like.

He discarded his signature beanie the moment they stepped in the trailer, knowing exactly what he wanted to say to the blonde with him; needing to show her how serious he was about his confession of love.

She said it back – loving him. Loving all the good and bad.

His voice is wary, but hopeful, when he asks, “Betts?”

She steps forward, leaning against the doorjamb of the trailer entrance, no doubt aware of the large group of South Side Serpents outside his trailer who are now appraising her – the blonde girl-next-door with her perky personality and wrapped in niceties ( _but they don’t know her like him, know what she hides underneath_ ).

She looks at him, and he wonders what she sees ( _Dark black hair without his beanie, a pale face, and smudges under his eyes from his father’s arrest. The jacket sits well on him, framing him and after all she has seen recently – him fitting in at South Side High and his own feelings of the foster family he’ll be living with –)_.

She gives Jughead a tiny smile. “It fits.”

He gives her an answering smile in return.

*

_You made me a, you made me a believer, believer (PAIN)_

_You break me down, you build me up, believer, believer (PAIN)_

_I let the bullets fly, oh let them rain_

_My luck, my love, my God, they came from (PAIN)_

_You made me a, you made me a believer, believer..._

*

**Author's Note:**

> ASFHUIAHFUIDF THAT SEASON FINALE THOUGH.


End file.
